


Advent: Question

by FyrMaiden



Series: Klaine Advent 2015 [17]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Immortals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine has travelled far from home to find the answers he believes are hidden in his mother's journal...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent: Question

**Author's Note:**

> Another one that probably wants to be longer. Written on my phone. I doubt I'll come back to this one, though.

Blaine stands in the cold stone chamber, his teeth chattering and his slight frame buried beneath layers of wool and heavy furs, his hands held out to the brazier as he tries to give life back to his chilled extremities. Even here, three months deep into the far north, so far from home, the slight tan of his skin is the warmest thing in the room. Even the tapestries on the walls are spun from the palest cloth. He shivers, closes his eyes, and tries desperately the recall the wide rolling plains that raised him, and the flaming yellow sun whose trek across the skies to the eastern hills had marked his days. He feels like he hasn't seen the sun since he hit the snows, and certainly not since the fur trapper had dropped him at the outskirts of the fortress. 

The large wooden doors at the far end of the hall swing open, the hinges quiet but the iron bolts and ancient wood loud. Blaine expects the Lord of this Keep to be as grizzled as his men, his hair long and his beard full, his once strong body gone to fat. The man who enters is none of those things, but he is undoubtedly the man Blaine has trekked north to meet. His bearing is upright, and his face is young, smooth, not even the faint lines of age at his eyes yet. His woollen tunic hugs his frame, as do the riding jodhpurs on his legs. He looks at Blaine with eyes that pierce his very soul, and beckons the two guards with him closer, speaks quietly to them in the tongue the Northmen use. Blaine's fingers are pinkening in the glow of the coals, and he tries not to stare. 

Finally, the young lord speaks to him directly, his voice carrying in the cold still despite its lack of real volume. It demands answer, though it seems pleasant enough. 

“Why are you come?” he asks, his words easy and fluent in the Common. Blaine bows deeply, and holds out his hands to show he comes unarmed. 

“Answers,” he replies, his Northtongue rusty, despite his childhood lessons. He doesn't mean to sound rude, and hopes he will be forgiven his lack of expansion for using their language to speak. The young lord smiles briefly, only the briefest upturn of his lips, and then his face settles once again to the sternness that custom demands. 

“You have questions?” he says, and Blaine inclines his head. 

“May I?” he asks, gesturing to his journey worn pack, and the soft horse leather bags that house what few possessions he still owns. The young lord nods, and Blaine moves from the brazier to the bags, crouches beside them and rummages until he finds the one item he requires. He stands slowly and extends the book toward a guard, who steps forward and takes it from him. 

The book reaches the lord’s hands, and he turns it carefully between them, runs long fingers down the spine, whispers the ancients words written there. Blaine can say them, but no one in the south can yet translate them. The other man looks up, and gestures for Blaine to follow him, and then turns on his heel and strides away. Blaine reaches for his bags and then scrambles after him. 

He finds him again in the quiet of what must be his library. The guards wait at the doors, and gesture Blaine inside. Blaine steps inside, and his jaw drops at the sight of volumes, stacks of pages climbing endless toward the heavens. The young man sits at a desk in the centre, Blaine's book open before him, muttering words as he reads. He looks up at Blaine's audible gasp, loud in the silence, and smiles. 

“It's the largest in the North,” he says, voice proud. “It'll be why you were sent here.” 

Blaine nods, and heads slowly to the table. “I should introduce myself,” he says. “My name is Blaine, and I'm second heir to-”

He stops when the lord’s blue eyes meet his again. “I know,” he says. “We've watched you travel. I am Kurt, Lord here, and Watcher. And older now than you'll ever be, Blaine. Welcome. Sit.”

Blaine sinks to a chair, and watches closely as Kurt continues to read the secrets of the book. 

*

It is later when he stops and looks up at Blaine. The candles are low, and the supper he ordered for them grows cold. 

“Do you travel alone, Blaine?” Kurt asks him, and Blaine shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. “I have two guards of my own.” He thinks to reveal more, but then wonders about their safety. If ought were to happen to him here, he will need Mike and Tina to travel south again, to tell his father. Kurt says nothing, only raises his tankard to his lips and drinks deeply from it. 

“Eat, Blaine,” he says. “Tomorrow we will learn the secrets of your book. Tonight we feast.”

At the far end of the hall, the doors open and two guards enter, Tina and Mike between them, dressed in the warm wools of the Northmen. Blaine stares at them, and at his tankard, and doesn't remember when he falls asleep. 

*

Blaine awakes later in a large chamber decorated in the style of his home. Tina sits beside him, her hair unbraided, with a book open in her lap. Mike stands by the door, but he seems relaxed, comfortable even. He groans softly, and Tina lowers her book and offers him a smile. 

“Your mother’s book is under your pillow,” she says, and Blaine reaches to touch it, draws it out into the warm lamplight and examines it. It appears undamaged, and original to boot. 

“I don't understand,” he says, and Tina inclines her head. 

“I think,” she says, “That they felt you needed rest and would not until you had answers. So they made you sleep, and investigated whilst you were out.” 

“Do they have answers?”

She shrugs a shoulder, and Mike says, from the door, “We were to tell the guards when you woke. That's as much as we know, sir.” 

Blaine shifts his weight and rises slowly, kicking the covers from his limbs. He is relieved to find himself still wearing undergarments, though he cannot see his furs in the bedchamber at all. Instead, fine wools are laid out for him, spun in the same warm yellow of his house. He touches them with tentative fingers, and lifts the tunic from the chair back. 

“Do you need help with the breech laces, Blaine?” Tina asks, and he starts before laughing. 

“No,” he says. “I think I can dress. You may tell the guards I'm awake, though.” 

She nods her head, and both she and Mike disappear into the corridors beyond. 

*

As it transpires, Kurt does indeed have news for Blaine. The writing in the book leads them a week west and north by horse, to a fortress that looks much like the one they had left to Blaine's Southern eyes. Kurt begs them entrance by association with the daughter of the house, and by the secrets of Blaine's book, it's words in Northtongue so old that it's beyond Blaine's learning to read. 

Once inside, though, he introduces Blaine in Common to a small girl, petite in frame, with dark hair and eyes that are so like his own. 

“I believe,” Kurt says, “That your mother’s secret is that she had a sister. And I believe this is her daughter.”

Blaine stares at the girl, who stares back at him, unblinking and alien to him. 

And then he reaches to hug her to him, and she hugs him in return. 

Of all the secrets his mother kept before she lost her mind, this may be the one he resents unraveling least.


End file.
